Letter to freshmen: Welcome to your new home

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To my Cougar Family, it is with great honor that I say, welcome home!

Welcome home to the Palouse, to Pullman, to what we call the Promised Land. You are a part of something special and you make this community what it is. Regardless of where you come from, what you are studying, your past or your future, we are all united as WSU Cougs, eager to win the day for crimson and gray.

As you become more situated within your residence hall, apartment, or house, I encourage you to get out from behind those four walls and engage within our community! Whether it is grabbing dinner with a fellow student you’ve just met, attending a Week of Welcome event, or making your way into downtown Pullman for the Annual Lentil Festival, there is so much you can do. This is a brand new year, one that you can make into anything you want. Join a new club, meet new friends, take a class that has nothing to do with your major — you are in the driver’s seat and you have the agency to make this school year what you want it to be.

ASWSU is here to support you as you embark on this new year. We are your student government, representing over 18,000 undergraduate students, but most importantly we are here to be your advocate and resource. Our ultimate goal is to make sure your time here at WSU is the best it can be.

Our ASWSU Administration has five specific goals for this coming year. We hope to empower students, increase transparency, grow engagement, prioritize safety and improve the education we receive here at WSU.

Empowering student’s means including your voice in conversations with WSU administration and making sure you are heard. This also means giving you the tools you need to be successful here at WSU.

We also want to increase transparency, that way you know exactly what ASWSU is doing for you. More than just social media, we want to be present in your life so you know if you have an issue you can come to us.

Engagement to us is about engagement in the classroom, in clubs and in the community. Never been to downtown Pullman? Now is the time! Want to join a club even though you know no one in it? Take a risk and go for it.

When it comes to safety, if you are not safe on campus you cannot learn and you cannot live — the two reasons we are all here at WSU. ASWSU is here to advocate for you and connect you to resources. Whether its sexual violence prevention, mental health, driver safety, or gun violence prevention, we are advocating for you at the local, state and national levels. You should never feel unsafe on campus and we promise to do our best to ensure this.

Finally, we want to improve the education you receive here. We hope to help you navigate the new advising system and empower you in decision making. We also are working to expand open educational resources on campus so you are not paying an arm and leg for textbooks you need to succeed.

Remember, your experience at WSU is not defined by campus, Pullman, or even your diploma, but by the people you meet and the relationships you make. Getting involved with ASWSU or within campus as a whole is a phenomenal way to build relationships and make tangible, impactful change for the university.

There are countless ways to get involved with ASWSU. We are comprised of an executive branch, legislative branch, judicial board, election board, 11 service and programming committees and three auxiliaries. Each area works to serve and include students within our community. Let us know if you are interested in getting involved.

If you ever have any questions, never hesitate to reach out to me either at [email protected] or you can drop by our office in CUB 314. I would love to meet you, grab a coffee and chat about ways we can improve WSU together.